Week 4

Unlike some of the Pragmatists and Feminist Epistemologists, I do not think that knowledge is a detached activity, or something separate from our selves. Knowledge is constantly happening all over the place, all the time. In our minds, we have no control over knowledge. Yes, it is a pro-active activity, to gain knowledge, but we cannot simply stop knowledge from coming into our lives. That would be similar to saying we could stop the sun from rising and spreading light over the horizon. I would like to agree with Epistemologist, John Locke, in saying that we actively organize our thoughts and ideas to gain knowledge and beliefs. Some ideas may be so simple to us that we do not even notice we are compounding and abstracting them,  but that is because we have years of practice. Also, there is no way knowledge can be detached if the Feminist's "View from Nowhere" argument is false, which I believe it is. Not to dip into Theism, but only a God-like being would be able to see our external world with view free from cultural background or biased perspective. 


My philosophy on knowledge lies somewhere between all of the Epistemologists I have read about over the past few weeks. Here is a recipe to explain my beliefs:


INGREDIENTS FOR KNOWLEDGE:


3 cups of raw sense experience


1 1/2 cups of Locke's "operations"


A dash of primary and secondary qualities


4 teaspoons of phenomena (and noumena if you can find it)


2 slices of intuitions 


1 whole package of instrumentalism 


A sprinkle of the Generic Humanity Assumption (optional)



Mix with Hume's Fork and bake for 2,000 years (or until cause and effect are unjustifiable.)